


looking glass

by kkamagui



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22029577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kkamagui/pseuds/kkamagui
Summary: A blue synthetic cape flows down from his shoulders like the crush of a distant avalanche. Destructive and renewing. Admittedly a welcome distraction from the endless white and grotesque hearts that do not beat for him. Even through a smile, the princeling looks haggard.“You look like hell,” Felix says, and Dimitri laughs.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26
Collections: Project Sworn





	looking glass

**Author's Note:**

> partnered with the lovely miyu ([magepaw on twitter](https://twitter.com/magepaw)) for [project sworn](https://twitter.com/ProjectSworn)
> 
> miyu's beautiful art can be found [HERE](https://twitter.com/Magepaw/status/1226940335680413699)

* * *

The first breath Felix takes outside of cryosleep feels a lot less like breathing and more like dying. He is shivering violently despite all the measures taken to acclimatize his body temperature and clutches at the old-fashioned blanket someone wraps around his shoulders. The frosted chrome floors don’t register as anything beneath his feet as he wobbles after the archbishop.

_When did that happen_ , he thinks, staring at Byleth’s back. In his white archbishop attire and glowing green circuitry that wraps around him like a cape and reverent embrace, Byleth looks like one of those technogods come down to smite mankind for their folly. Felix hates it. He has never quite disliked who his professor had been before, but there is something unholy and distinctly un-human about the glow of Byleth’s laser gaze. 

“How long has it been,” he asks through blue lips. He clenches his teeth tight to still the tremors and his jaw aches. Seated in the warming station, Felix takes in the relative disarray and dust of the station he had last seen polished to a mirror finish.

“About one hundred years,” Byleth says. “Since the war ended. 93 since you went to sleep.”

“Was _forced_ to sleep,” Felix slurs angrily. His mind is still struggling to catch up from its frozen dreams. “What of the others?”

“You’re friends are still asleep, but waking. You were the first to break through.”

“The _others_.”

Byleth blinks at him, then smiles. It is a kind gesture yet it does nothing but strike fear into Felix’s heart. “Adrestria is no more. Fodlan’s throat has opened to the rest of the world.”

A million different memories play over the unmoving chill of the Archbishop’s gaze. Flashes of horrifying color and sure carnage, gone in a second. Felix is still too cold to feel the burn of some unexplainable rage, but at least his mind is capable of roiling in its tempestuous mess.

“Why did you force us to sleep?” he demands, sparks flying over his numb fingertips. The energy feels like a photon-quick rush of jagged glass and despair. But it is warm.

For a long moment, Byleth stares at Felix with his sad, blank eyes. The verdant brilliance burns holes into Felix’s skull, but he refuses to look away. “I wanted to keep you safe,” says Byleth somberly, “and now the world is at peace. Come,” he stands and reaches his hand out to Felix. “The others are waking. Let us go greet them.”

*

In the few cycles following their wake, they’ve combed through the entirety of the underground chambers for any other survivors. Felix’s stomach is queasy from the unwelcome sight of bones and unfortunate flesh. Faces in rotting torment and expressions of bland, forced peace.

“Some did not make it,” Byleth tells him, stating the reality of malfunctioning processors and the lack of power. He sounds sad when he says it, but Felix is still feeling quite blind with rage and on the verge of being sick. He doesn’t want to hear it. “I advise you not to look into the malfunctioned chambers.”

He had been the only one to actually look into the chambers, whether it be out of spite and refusal to listen to the archbishop, or out of some misled belief that he is _wrong_.

But, as usual, Byleth is never wrong.

Felix looks over the cold, miserable group of people. Compared to his memories from a century ago, there are holes in the portrait where someone should be. Names are slow to come to his mind; he still feels sluggish, but he feels the memories of their faces burning into him. He imagines in their place the results of their horrid fates. Some are frozen past the point of return, leaving them little more than humanoid blocks of ice. Others are halfway to rotting, their stasis interrupted by the irregularity of power flow.

“Soon we’ll need to find another place to stay,” Dimitri says when their bodies have become limber enough for walking normally. “I don’t expect the power reserves in this place to hold out for much longer. Once we’ve gathered what we can, we should set out.” No one points out that he is sitting in vigil, knees pressed together punishingly before a weak blue circuit flame he somehow had the energy reserves for. His hands are clenched tightly—one of his tells. Felix knows that Dimitri’s fingers must be burning from the sudden exertion after so long. He does not want to show that he is shaking.

“We don’t have anywhere to go,” Felix retorts. Dimitri turns those sad blue eyes on him, haunted in a way that makes it seem as though the past hundred years were spent more in purgatory than sleep.

The circuit flame isn’t exactly warm, but everyone huddles around it as though it is a campfire. Stares at the names scratched into the corroded plate floor in pained silence while Felix seethes. “The archbishop has offered to take us back to Garreg Mach,” says Dimitri. “Apparently it is now a haven city and he has already prepared spaces for us to stay.”

Felix bites his tongue to stay quiet, jerks away from Sylvain’s concerned nudge. He can feel everyone, alive and dead, burning holes into him with their tired gazes. The rest of his body is freezing, but his heart feels like the scorching sun in a cage too small.

“Fine,” he says through his clenched jaw. “Then go.”

“Felix,” Sylvain says, close and warm and sweet. His body is angled toward Felix and away from the others, as though he is trying to appeal to Felix with his body language. Sometimes it works, but only when Felix is in a good mood. “I’ll stay with you.”

He takes a long look at his old friend. Sylvain’s pale skin looks gaunt in the nearly-absent lighting. The fire in his hair is gone, dimmed to a strange copper that looks a lot like dried blood. He looks back at Dimitri: head haloed by the grim emergency lights, face illuminated by electric fire; a red-blue statue between heresy and piety.

The words that leave his mouth next are knives on his tongue. Despite everything, he tastes nothing but static.

“I have no wish for animal company,” he says coldly, draws himself off the ground to glare at no one in particular. The archbishop is silent, eyes glowing. “If you must follow some ill-omened deity to know your own names, then so be it. I’m not about to obey some god that decides who to kill and spare on a whim.”

Felix leaves, chest tight and heart in his throat. Outside the cryo chamber facilities, he cannot stop shivering.

* * *

True to the archbishop’s word, most of Faerghan architecture has been left intact. There had been small pockets of resistance during the war and some structures have the obvious signs of wear from battles and sieges, but it is hard to see much past the thick sheets of ice that coat them. The capital itself is blockaded with a terrifying amount of security wards, likely to be unlocked by the archbishop’s biosignature alone. 

Felix bypasses the sleeping city, carving his way through corridors that have grown unfamiliar beneath a layer of history and ice. He adjusts his breathing mask, pulls his carbon fiber scarf a little higher around his throat as though that will help fend off his internal chill. After spending so long in icy stasis, the year-round wintry weather is but a soft, careless breeze.

None of the cities are the same. Not that Felix had been expecting them to be, but the spiraling intricacies of newer structures and flashier, quicker technology makes him feel ancient. Unsurprisingly, none of the tech responds to his own biosignature—does not even recognize him as a human entity.

“Where do you hail from?” a guard asks him sharply, suspiciously. They eye his sword with a great deal of mistrust. Felix looks up at the tall, arching gate and its gold circuits, bright lion blue cascading down the pillars in sheets of lambent holobanners.

“From the Fraldarius territories,” he replies. He is prepared to fight his way out of this if he has to, shifts his sword hand to the hilt in a slow but serious gesture.

“I’m putting you in quarantine until we can verify that,” the guards says. Clearly the Fraldarius name is not enough to get him out of trouble. Perhaps having a name so closely associated with the sleeping king returned is nothing _but_ trouble. “We need to confirm—” 

“No. You don’t,” Felix says caustically and turns on his heel. His sword, still sheathed, crackles with unreleased, thunderous electricity as he walks away. It is threat enough that the guard does not seek to pursue him. There is a bad taste in his mouth, bitter like betrayal, though he isn’t sure what has betrayed him: the natural flow of time or everyone who has moved on without him.

* * *

From a mountain, Garreg Mach is a small but blinding pinpoint of festivity, no doubt shining ever more brilliant in welcoming the king thought lost to deep slumber. It looks almost like a sunset, if it were not for the fact that the climate in Faerghus has grown only more overcast and cold over the years. Felix squints through his optic enhancements, adjusting the image so the glare isn’t so bright. 

He can see the resplendent glow of the bustling trade spires and what is no doubt the grand church, the glittering dots orbiting various hubs in organized paths of neon traffic. From this far away, the tri-city looks almost like one of those bubble displays meant for children, built with laser-cut circuitry and glass-filament. Felix glares for a moment more then shuts the optics off, closing his eyes as the vertigo from the sudden zoom out hits.

Felix wanders, heedless of the ache in his hip from the weight of his sword, knowing not whether it is day or night. In the past, he and the others would often escape the confines of lessons on propriety to sneak glances at the silent geoliths around the capital. He finds himself before one again; this one is structure that looks oddly like a cage of bones. A glowing red mass of memory ferrofluid that looks like a terribly malformed heart.

He tries speaking to it. Tries asking it to show what memories it has from the war. Although the heart-mass lights up in response to his voice, it does not give him an answer. So he moves onto another one.

“I figured I would find you with these things,” says Dimitri, words carrying over the wind as though he is far away. Felix is sitting against a geolith in the figure of a worn lion, his back to the westward wind. He forces down the instinct to tense at the sudden noise, blinks away the veil of half-sleep from his eyes and picks out the slight tremor in Dimitri’s voice.

It’s out of place. Dimitri only sounds like that on nights he wears a hole in the ground from pacing, unable to sleep. Only when he jerks awake, eyes wild and wet, bright like the carnage of his dreams.

Felix sneers. “Don’t you have some coronation to be at?”

“I wanted you to be there,” Dimitri replies, rounding the geolith so he is but a few paces away. “So it’s on hold until you will be.”

Felix takes in Dimitri’s appearance. He has changed into newer clothes, ones that fit with his monstrous height with a combat edge. A blue synthetic cape flows down from his shoulders like the crush of a distant avalanche. Destructive and renewing. Admittedly a welcome distraction from the endless white and grotesque hearts that do not beat for him. Even through a smile, the princeling looks haggard.

“You look like hell,” Felix says, and Dimitri laughs.

“I do,” he says. When Felix does not respond, he sighs and walks a bit closer. Not close enough that they would be sitting side to side, as they had done before, but with just enough distance to be out of Felix’s sword range. “I asked the archbishop about the war. About why he chose to put us to sleep as the world destroyed itself instead of letting us fight.”

“Edelgard died by his hand,” Dimitri continues. “There are… pieces of the war, memories of those who died scattered into these geoliths around. I could never speak with them when we were younger but,” he stops himself for a moment, turning around so that he can lean back against the uneven structure and slide down. “I tried again just before I found you. I saw things from even before the war.”

“Duscur,” Felix says, almost reflexively. He quickly averts his eyes when Dimitri turns to him.

“I won’t ask you to go to Garreg Mach,” Dimitri says. “But I do want you to return with me to Faerghus soon.”

“You plan to go memory diving,” Felix says numbly. He finds it gut wrenchingly ironic that despite being launched a century into the future, the poor prince is still scouring for anything to piece together what had been denied to them.

“You know me well,” Dimitri intones. The tremor in his voice has died down, just a bit. His hands are still clenched.

“The war is done, the threat is long dead. This time has no need for _soldiers_ ,” Felix says scathingly, finding that the words come out angrier than he feels. Right now, he is just so tired. “Faerghus needs a king, not someone who wants to relive the memories of a god’s massacre.”

“He had his reasons,” Dimitri says, “And the archbishop has made it clear he will provide all the assistance we will need in reawakening our home. Would you accompany me?”

Felix closes his eyes. On his other side, the geolith’s lights pulse in time with a heartbeat he cannot hear or feel. “Why should I.”

“I could never ask Sylvain,” Dimitri says, so suddenly and seriously that Felix bites his lip to keep from chuckling. “The others don’t like to fight. Many have already set aside their weapons for other pursuits, but you haven’t. You haven’t forgotten battle.” He doesn’t even falter when Felix fixes his glare on him. “You _can’t_ forget.”

“Shut up,” Felix says, standing abruptly. “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

Dimitri’s smile is sad and Felix hates it. Hates that he cannot look away from it.

“Your sword is outdated, by the way.” Dimitri stands as well. Walks closer slowly as though that will help any of Felix’s nerves. Felix finds himself craning his neck to look Dimitri in the eyes, unnerved by the quickening of the geolith’s red pulse over pale skin. “I got you a new one, just in case I actually found you.”

“Presumptuous.”

Dimitri tilts his head, and Felix follows the movement of his golden hair with an anxious gaze. In the silence he had been feeling somewhat cold, and the world feels unfairly warm now. He draws his sword and points the photon-bright tip at Dimitri’s chestguard, close enough that the light refracts off the nanoweave onto the snow around them. 

“I won’t go mad from talking to them, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Dimitri murmurs, eyelids lowered. His gaze is blue and demure beneath his lashes, reflecting twin strips of light. He glances meaningfully to the geolith right beside them, then back at Felix. Even now, with his haunted visage and dark circles, Felix has to tell himself that Dimitri is _not_ pretty.

“You’re already mad. That’s the least of my worries.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

Felix does not answer. He has already sheathed his sword and started trekking uphill to the next towering geolith. It looks like a crude flower of flames, slowly unfurling to reveal the violet glow of a silent, emptied heart.

* * *


End file.
